


Very Max, Much Wasteland, Such Dog

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: And It's Not What You'd Expect, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Max Has A Dog, Max and Furiosa feels, Pet ghosts, Post-Nuclear War, Wasteland road trip, Worldbuilding, animal and nature feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t his dog, Max knows. His Dog was irreplaceable. Survive and drive, that’s what Max does. But with the red dog along, the Wasteland’s more alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Very Max, Much Wasteland, Such Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Someone created [a stunning photo set crossing over Max from Fury Road with](http://thebyrchentwigges.tumblr.com/post/134250267390/prettiestcaptain-in-which-max-has-a-dog) images from another Australian movie - _Red Dog_. That's based on a real Red Dog who wandered around Western Australia, cadging food and rides, getting in trouble, always moving on - like a certain Road Warrior. Matching them up after the world fell led to this Wasteland journey.

When he left Citadel territory, Max knew his ghosts would haunt him again.

The first one to return wasn’t human.

That bluish shadow with reddish feet could have been a blur in tired eyes. Max knew better. He had left the Citadel, heading south through the barren, maddening Wasteland, with an errand. Not an easy one. Days, he drove and scouted, always seeking, while the ghost veered in and out of mirage shimmer and dune edges. Nights, Max would catch a glimpse of a tail - or think he did. He’d turn. Every time, he felt a fool, remembering too late that his dog was dead.

He'd found Dog on his way out of where he’d last had a life, when he'd lost everything but the Interceptor. He'd slowed down to avoid hitting the animal. The dog, tame, had come up to Max’s car. Max had opened the door, and that was that. Dog had been as clearly his dog as the Interceptor had been his car.

On that road, Max learned that he’d left a last holdout burning behind him: that the police were as dead as the nation: that all was waste. With the Interceptor fresh and Dog beside him, he had been young enough to make the mistake of hope.

For five years, they’d moved through the Wasteland together. Dog had been cheerful, quiet on the road, better behaved than a lot of sprogs. Brave. They fought together like one. Dog had been shot down by a crossbow bolt, years ago. There hadn’t been another. Weary and haunted, Max had recognized, too late, how much of his past endurance had been due to Dog.

Max never dreamed of Dog: never had nightmares about the animal, either. Yet when he was awake and moving on, the shadows became alive again.

* * *

It was at the last trading post that Dog became more than a flicker. Max had surrendered to bartering for guzz while it was around. The Wild Waste was behind him. The Hot Zone was ahead. And beyond that – there was no knowing. When he pulled up at the post, Max almost spun out, turning by reflex to avoid Dog, suddenly present in front of his grille. Indistinct, flashing around his edges, Dog paced ahead. Max could hear his unearthly whine. He followed the apparition around the back of the trading post.

Between a scrap pile and a maggot farm was a cage with a rock on top. A sad reddish canine was inside, mostly bones. The bluish ghost padded up and touched noses with the living red dog, then flickered out. The live dog looked towards the car, ears pricking. Its eyes were still bright.

Max eased his car back out front. He did the guzz deal in near silence. When the tank caps were on, he ventured, “That dog, out back. What about it?”

The guzz trader grinned. “Good eating, right?” With this as his cue, Max bartered again. A week’s worth of Citadel bean bars was probably too much, but it opened the cage.

The red dog flinched from the guzz trader who’d been feeding it. It didn't come when Max whistled. Max saw that the red dog was a he when he bolted around both of them to Max's car. People were bad, to this dog, but cars were good? Max could relate. The red dog was too light when Max picked him up to plunk him in the passenger seat. His head popped up instantly, copper-red eyes looking ahead through the windscreen.

Closing his own door, Max flung the red dog a Citadel bean bar. He crunched it up before Max could rev the engine. Then, he jammed his pointed muzzle against the window, waving his tail with approval as they left the trading station behind. The red dog looked back. Max didn't.

* * *

The next day the Wasteland seemed endless. Stony flats ran under Max's tires. There was a vague skim of gray cliffs to the east, the haze of the polluted, broken coast to the left. The hum of the wheels bored into Max’s brain. This place lacked the harsh red beauty of the Citadel’s country up north. He’d been a fool, to take Furiosa’s errand: strike out south in the hopes of finding a true Green Place. He was driving through badlands, dead lands. Without Furiosa, hope was a mistake. Failure was inevitable. The whir of the tires was starting to sound like voices. Memories of fire, and blood, and -

The dog farted.

Max cursed and rolled down the window. When the grit got to be too much for him, he wound it back up and glared at the red dog. “Rude.”

The dog opened his own mouth and panted, then let his tongue loll.

“Good. You deserve it,” Max said.

The red dog subsided, then leapt up to watch out the windows again. Max found himself wearing a grudging half-smile.

* * *

Days blurred past. As they went on together, Max felt it strongly: the red dog wasn’t another Dog. Stinky from day one, he quit flinching in three days, got barky in seven, and started to fill out in fourteen. The red dog stayed a dog-size or two smaller than Dog, less helpful for defense. Smart, if sly, he grew friendly enough, but his attentions stopped short of devotion. Dog used to watch Max: the red dog was all about the road. That was fine by Max, who had a lot on his mind.

The car was talking to him. Under the sands, there was the sense of a road beneath the tires. That happened more the closer you drove to the Hot Zone. Max had learned to hate the Hot Zone. He’d gone feral in the sands to stay out of the old city. If the Hot Zone was what was left of the Before-Time, the devil could keep it for his own. Max’s plan was to slip through the western edge of the area. Simpler plans had gone horribly wrong.

With the red dog on board, Max found himself taking breaks before his teeth started to rattle, talking more. “Quit it. I’ll stop. Not on the tires. Whatcha got? Mmmh. Hey. HEY. NEVER on the tires.”

As Max took them south, more and more, the sand was marbled with black and grey ashes. The winds grew louder behind the dunes. When Max looked to see what made the noise, the air was whistling through building shells. Twisted remains of lampposts, every glass bulb blown, began to appear. There were occasional signs of other humans in a fleshier state. He saw an old billboard stripped back to the brittle plywood, scorched with the message MONGRELS RULE. One of the lampposts had been turned into a gibbet, swinging a dessicated form. The red dog’s intent road watch was reassuring, now. Still not his dog, but decent company. Better than alone.

Max was going at a good, wary clip when something barred the way ahead. He slowed. The red dog looked where Max did. A set of concrete road barriers had been set in a half-circle, blocking the ghost road beneath them. Each one had a rough word spray-painted on it. DANGER. POISON. RADIOACTIVE. KEEP OUT! 1000 YEARS.

Max kept the motor running while he weighed the message. Its paradox of destruction and cooperation – some group had squandered resources to do this – made his chest heavy. The red dog was sitting up, pointed forwards, quivering with intensity. Max looked at the dog, then the barriers, then the dog again.

In the end, Max had to turn the car substantially to drive around the barriers. When the sands cleared and flattened on the other side, he hit the accelerator.

* * *

CRASH THUD KRANG SKREEEEEE

Buzzards, of course.

With the choice of stopping for the night in the Hot Zone or continuing, Max had chosen to drive on. This was what he’d been saving his car headlights for: getting the fuck through places like this. And there was nothing like a night drive through dead urbanity to draw every Buzzard around.

Once he'd accepted the mess he was in, there was a grim pleasure to it. Max was one with his car, adrenaline chilling his brain and searing his veins. Zipping under an old highway pass, he wished Furiosa was with him. She could’ve tossed a thunderstick and brought the pass down on the pursuers. He’d never seen her miss a target.

The red dog was cowering in the back. Max forced himself to stay on four wheels, not two, as he rounded a corner with that extra life on board.

Time for his favorite trick: the fast reverse, followed by a swerve to one side. Two Buzzard rattletraps crashed into each other, bursting into blooms of fire in the night. Good. They still owed him, for the others their kind had killed. While the other Buzzards careened, Max picked a laneway, peeled between the old building shells, and struck lucky – the old thoroughfare blunted with sand was a beautiful present. His car peeled out, revving in celebration. Max felt his blood surge. He ached for Furiosa, though aware, above the belt, he should spare her this hell.

Now the red dog had his muzzle up against the window, uttering yaps in appreciation of their speed as they left the last Buzzards behind. Max was grinning, himself.

Finally, Max came to a stop. Reconnaissance gave him a silent morning and empty sand. The shell of a city rose to the dawn, its broken heights still dappled with mirror-glass, reflecting the morning light. Below, rivers and drifts of deep madder sand filled its ways, buried its suburbs and strip malls, the Outback reclaiming its own. The fickle sea had left the dry harbour here. The rising sun’s angle left it still filled with shadow, a dark ghost of water.

Furiosa’s absence at that moment possessed Max. Like the light taking the city, shattering and illuminating.

The red dog was panting in his seat. Max gave him a rough pat. “Vehicle check,” he said. The red dog joined him and stayed close, for once.

After Max checked his tires and undercarriage, the red dog uttered an inquiring whine.

“We keep moving,” Max said.

* * *

Max’s brusque intelligence was storing data every minute. There were people here beyond the Hot Zone. Few enough that a blasted, barkless forest was still standing. Still enough that a bandit trap to snare the desperate entering or leaving the Hot Zone was viable. And he’d walked right into it when he’d let the red dog out of the car. Max had shot the first one while the dog bolted. Unfortunately, that had been the first one, and the little brother. Max was flinging aside his jammed gun and whipping out a knife while the bandit laughed, raising his spear.

The red dog hurtled back. Max hadn’t expected this. The red dog fled strangers, after his cage time. He wasn’t defending Max, exactly, but barking and nipping at the bandit’s fur-tasseled boots.

“This is your dog? This?” The bandit kicked back to shake the dog off, then glanced over his spear shoulder, trying to pick a target. Max risked diving in for a stab. The bandit’s carotid artery spurted over his face. The fight still took five minutes to finish.

When it was done, Max broke the corpses down for dog tucker. It took two days to dry the carcass strips into jerky in the post-nuclear sun. He let the red dog have some of the bones. By Wasteland standards, watching the dog goof around with the femurs was pretty entertaining.

* * *

Max was lost.

The first day of the dust storm, a cruel wind had ripped his map out of his hands. Then the skies had stayed hazed for nights and days. The compass had been having a magnetic-storm fit since it all began. He’d lost track of the days he’d been moving, always a bad sign. Nightmares had returned, endless horrors all centered on losing that map. His water was dwindling.

Also, the red dog had vanished.

Max had expected something like this. It had taken Max so long to warm up to the red dog, the not-Dog dog, that the animal had become standoffish in turn. The cage hadn’t turned the red dog into a fighter, but it hadn’t made him mean, either. Lately he’d developed the idea that Max and the car belonged together. He would circle and nip to get Max back there, if the human went more than ten meters away. And Max had never thought a dog could be so intent on the drive, the journey. Like another kind of road warrior.

The red dog still wasn’t his dog. Lately, he’d thought the red dog was meant for someone waiting in the red stones of the Citadel. One of the Sisters, or a Wretched pup, or maybe, even ---

Max heard paws scrunching the sand. The red dog burst over a dune, carrying a dead goanna like a drooping moustache. Max had told the dog so many times to Put That Down or Bring That Back, he dropped it at Max’s feet.

They split it.

The red dog brought two more lizards the next day, waiting eagerly for Max to knife through the thick lizard hide and throw down the entrails. The rich mineral blood of the lizard meals sharpened Max’s wits. The next dawn, he licked his hand and felt which side dried first. Then, they took off, either west or south, fifty percent less lost.

* * *

At first Max thought it was a mirage when the settlements started up again. They clung to the coast behind jerry-rigged fences of scrap vehicles. The ocean behind them glinted blue and moved like memory.

He’d pulled up at the third settlement to see about trading for some water. Leaving his car, Max glimpsed himself in the rear-view. The raw, dust-caked being he’d become wouldn’t be welcomed in – could get shot on sight. It was too late. He was out, and shadows were moving behind the rusty metal.

The red dog leapt out beside him and barked. He looped around Max and the car, then nudged his head under Max’s hand. Max petted him by reflex.

“Mmmm, don’t mind ‘m. The dog. Friendly,” Max creaked.

There was a laugh behind the fence, and some muttering. Finally, someone in there said,

“Well, you’re human. What do you want?”

* * *

North of the sea settlements, some low ranges were blunter against the horizon than other Wasteland stones. Something about their blur reminded Max of how the planted tops of the Citadel looked from far away.

Max drove.

Strips of asphalt emerged from the earth here and there. A fly hit his windscreen. A handful of shrubs turned into low bushlands. Max thought he was staying calm, but the red dog got more and more excited. He was looking for a camping ground at twilight when a gleam in the earth caught his eye. The red dog was going berserk, trying to worm out of the window Max had cracked for him. Max let him out and he darted over. As the dog ran, a bird exploded from a low perch and flew off, squawking outrage. When Max made it there, he found the red dog drinking from a shallow, sandy pool.

Max waited for the stupid, impulsive beast to drop dead. The falling evening was getting cold. That had to be why he was trembling. “Hey. Boy. Dog. C’mere.” He took a morsel out of his pocket. The red dog bounded over, unimpaired, and gulped it down.

An hour later, with the last of the sunset on the water, Max dared the pool. The clean water washed out the dust in his mouth. The hard journey had tamped down his earlier yearnings to a dull throb, balled up with other Wasteland needs and fears. Thirst sated, reeling with success, he let a name uncurl on his tongue: _Furiosa._

The hard soil under his feet was the dirt Furiosa had yearned for. This was more a brown place than a green place. It’d do. Her Citadel had the knowing to make it green. Pumps for drilling up water, tough seeds that would grow crops in thin apocalyptic dirt, hard weapons to defend and gentle words to hold off that necessity.

The red dog uttered a querulous howl, a wild sound. Max looked up. A pack of five animals, pale against the night, had come near the water hole. Dingoes? Dogs? Hybrids? Mutants? Max could make out an extra ear here, an extra leg dragging there. Every pack member shared the same intelligent stance.

The red dog met them halfway. They exchanged short howls. The red dog bowed its forelegs. One pack member sniffed at the red dog while he lolled in the dirt, ending the examination with a sudden yip. The pack slid off. The last one paused, glancing back with her three ears and her tail raised alike. Then she, too, was gone.

The red dog rolled up, astonished. After a few stunned barks, he started to follow them, then looked back. He loped over to Max and started circling. Max realized the red dog was trying to herd his human companion to follow, too.

Max found himself kneeling, roughly scrubbing behind the red dog’s ears. “No, no. I – I have to go back. You…uh…” Max went back to the car and opened the passenger door. He waited.

The red dog came half-close. He circled Max and the car three times before pausing. A still moment passed. The dark blue sky was deepening to black, pierced with stars. The red dog lifted his head for another wild howl. Then, alive with instinct, he bounded off, nose down, tail up, tracing the pack. The soft bush shadows took him.

Max stayed by the car. His entire chest throbbed. He understood, at last. The red dog had never been his dog. That dog belonged to his own canine self, and to the road.

The space the red dog had opened inside Max began to fill with something heavy: the double burden of remembering this place, and the long, hard return. Max’s own instincts twinged, warning him about the road north.

He bowed his head, then shook his shoulders to loosen them. The night had small insect and bird sounds. His instincts gave him no warning about staying here. This was as safe as the Wasteland got. There was the pool, and he had a couple of bean bars left. As Max turned to dig them out of his car, something caught  the edge of his vision. As if a low, bluish shadow had flashed inside the car door he'd opened for the red dog. For once, he wouldn't look, like a fool, to not see anything.

But he closed the car door very gently.

**Author's Note:**

> Same continuity as my other stories - part of Max's story after [Gastown Nights. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4515567/chapters/10270788) What horror awaits Max on the road back? George Miller, you tell me....
> 
> I'm sorry if you were expecting a Shiba Inu from the doge-speak title! More [about Red Dog awaits here.](http://www.thewritersdrawer.net/red-dog.html)


End file.
